andalucian

My "Worlds biggest collection of stubbies and "Alibi" did not fucking sell. I wanted more than $120 dammit.

Robyn if you read this, use your journals influential media might and link to my new one for my flatwarming. If I can convince Dave to whore out dog biting men tomorrow I'll try for it on there too.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auction_detail.asp?id=29095541

Also, why are you back in the Tr0n ?

-S

Well I may as well describe the magnificent Trademe sale I'd been planning as that nutjob Ben Nathan has fucked it clear up for me.

I contacted Ben Nathan a few weeks back intent on obtaining the sledgehammer he'd used to pulp the America's cup. This had been unfortunately destroyed by the police.
I talked to him for a whiel regarding other items connected with the even that he may still have. All he had was his T-Shirt he'd been wearing at the time. I made him a cheap offer as really that's pretty shabby as far as collectors items go. No deal.

I also wasn;t too keen on dealing with him after deciding that just as he comes across on TV, the guys a frikkin nutjob.

And I quote:

"However I will consider what you have to offer me, provided
you are genuine and not a hoariri trying to
set me up? Rest assurred if you are...I will take you
out...this is not a threat...this is a
promise...understand? "

"believe me when I say they
are many and would kill me if they had the chance as I
would gladly kill them if I had the chance too as the
old Maori proverb says...there is no sweeter smell
than the rotting corpse of your dead enemy. So from
your kupu I believe you are not one of them."

Obviously since then he has been racking his brain for what other items he can throw into the sale to jazz it up a bit. From what I've heard so far, sodd all..

This doesn't bother me in the slightest. What bothers me is he fucked up my MAIN SALE.

For the last month I have been talking with Mike Smith about obtaining the chainsaw he used on One Tree Hill. Now due to the negative publicity he doesn;t want a bar of it. Understandably, it's not about the money, I'm sure the media will treat him shabbily. He's sane, Ben Nathan is not.

A Trademe sale of the chainsaw would have been gold dammit!. To tell the truth though I'd probably really rather it was in a museum. I may continue along those lines.

Ah well, it was wonderfully entertaining to organise and talk with these people. And I still have a few other items and plans yet to investigate.

-S

Now that I am not to be prosecuted for putting a kiwi up for sale on trademe I have new and vastly less sketchy auctions. Feel free to bid on or pass on...

http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auction_detail.asp?id=27808131
http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auction_detail.asp?id=27809719

My grand auction which I expect to make thousands from (seriously) is still in acquisition negotiation.

-S

My phone. Take it from me at 10pm. Or at least disable it, only able to call for taxi's or pizza. It's trouble.

Yesterday I had my final meeting with the Department of Conservation. I made my sworn statement and all forms were filled. They have finally wisely decided that it'd be best that word not get out that they have spent over $4000 on investigating me for trading in fictional endangered species.

I get off scot free with only the side effect of having had my house and shrubbery searched.

Well there is one other side effect. My passport now has more notes on it than you can shake a stick at. No longer will I get the big queue at airports. I get the special queue that involves bag searchin and the occasional striking a pose nekkid.

As I'm off to Chile in a month or two this will be shitty but still pretty thoroughly balanced out by work-paid travel to South America. 3 weeks holiday afterward roaming small latino nations will be fabulous.

-S

Just when things are going chipper....  Names have been changed to protect the innocent and slightly shattered.

-----------

>Hey there Andalucian
>I'll give you a call tonight too but wanted to send this email  so
>there's no awkwardness when I talk to you.
>
>I think you're fantastic - I really do enjoy your company, and I am way
>stoked to know you definitely. BUT (that was coming wasn't it!)
>that feeling that I had really done something I shouldn't have on Sunday
>morning stayed with me when I left you.  I spent a lot of time thinking
>about that and tried to figure out why I really wish I hadn't gone where
>we went. And I think its because I am quite sure that I don't want to
>head down that road with you.  I really wish I hadn't started (got a
>little carried away hey).  Its funny because I do find you attractive,
>obviously,  but I really do want to just be friends with you.
>
>You are a GREAT man and I wish you EVERYTHING.  I am quite sure that
>this is the right thing to write.  I am trying really hard to match up
>my thoughts with my actions. I know I did a crap job of that on Sunday.
>I hope this doesn't hurt you as I think you are GRAND and would hate to
>do that :)  I am hoping you feel this way about me too and I am just
>being the person to voice it first and that'll be wicked.  :)
>
>I'll def call tonoght I just wanted to throw this out there so you knew,
>roughly, where I am at.  I hope you had a wonderful Sunday. Yay that the
>weather is still sweet aye - its great.  Oh and the ballet - it was
>superb.
>
>peace out Andalucian
>
>xx
>S

I think it's safe to say I didn't feel that way.  I've done this enough to others of late, what goes around. 

Does this mean I should stop seeing girls like A or S because it craps out?   Going back to R, H, K or C would never cause me the sick feeling in my stomach I feel now.

-S

If you download music at 2am drunk, chances are the following morning you will not remember what, how or why you were on THAT tangent..... I'm not going to wax lyrically about the wonders of INXS. Much of what they made is nigh on an idictment of the late 80's. But like David Bowie, Michael Hutchence has a captivating voice. And fuckit, it makes me happy right now.

I might look back on this and delete or edit it for posterity, or hopefully I'll look back on it as the moment I first knew I'd met someone I truly liked for all the right reasons. Someone I don't intend and probably can't even contemplate stuffing around. That's quite angsty and lame I know but y'know it's new for me. I usually spend the first few weeks trying to figure out what I think about a person and whether I'm seeing them as I want them to be and or whether they're interesting because they remind me of someone I miss.

And as usual in Wellington it's via 2 degrees of seperation. You go through several dates and getting to know someone you met at a pub better, to find out they already know half of your friends. If they knew her, where the hell has she been before eh???

I have decided to cancel the interview with the Dominion and Radio NZ.  I just really don't think they're got to portray me as anything more than a nutjob who tried to sell a kiwi on trademe.  It'll appear, abbreviated and peculiar on page 9 or something.

I'm to buy a digital camera. I know nothing about camera's. Writing doesn't quite cut it.

And bollocks to all and sundry who loved the Nick Cave concert and deemed it life changing. It was good but....

-S

Swimming once more.  It fit's well with waking up early on a sunday morning.  It's just me 8 half empty lanes, me and 8 old codgers in Speedos.  That helps focus on the swimming.  Every muscle tingles afterward, I like it.  It compensates for the pizza consumed last night while watching the wariors at an ungodly hour of the evening.

I also intended getting up early this morning to catch ESPN's World Series of Poker.  Don't knock it till you've seen it, it's tremendous.  A mix of the most unstable and peculiar personalities gathered around a table engaging in humourous and sometimes bitchy conversations while they psyche each other out in various griping styles of poker.  I absolutely loved it.  I caught it first when in Fiji the other week.  I sat down at 11pm to watch 5 mins then had to turn it off at 3am while it was still not finished as I had work the following morning.  It;s great.  It's one of those, sit on the couch wth a friend and some popcorn for a sunday avo type viewing experiences.

I have a new trademe account finally.  After my Kiwi selling fiasco and the Winston Peters style night out package that account was removed.  I have a larrge list of items I am curtrently in the process of obtaining as my new auction items.  It is ground covered before so shouldn't get pulled by trademe but is such a fantastic idea that I am soon to be cashed up.  I'm dying to utter a description of the first one but will be negotiation the purchase of it from it's current owner up until next Friday.  All will be revealed next weekend.  Suffice to say, I am already going to be in the media for the kiwi saga once I finally yarn to Doc, this next sale will hit Campbell live I guarantee it and go for $30,000 plus easy.  Not telling anyone is almost driving me insane so far.  I get so happy with myself when my idea's turn out brill I almost explode.

Met two girls on Friday via the work posse that I'm going to yarn to further for a drink sometime so that area of life may improve, who knows.  It has to be better than the last frikkin nutjob that came my way.  Absolutely interesting normal wonderful person until 2 drinks.  Then it's like schizophrenia takes hold.  Starts rambling about insane shiite such as "this is just like how it was before".  Eh??  What before? You mean in a previous relationship?  or do you mean in that really really normal way, like in our reincarnation style past lives???  When I asked her about saying it she denied either saying it or why she ever would.  Yeh normal, tops...  I give you a Billy Bowden style crooked finger, you're gone....

I have milk, eggs, flour and lemons, unless other inspiration hits it's pancake time.

-S

Andrew from Doc rang around 10pm last night (I think his name was Andrew). My cheery greeting didn't quite charm the man and he informed me he'd be flying down this morning for an interview.

I tried to ask if we could do it over the phone as a flight was a bit of a waste of taxpayer cash (shouldn't he be off poisoining possums or something?) but what he has to say must be "in person". Oh joy, that just gives off good vibes....

Airporto el Wellingtonia was of course covered with thick fog until late this morning so I doubt he's made it and he hasn't called me yet. More waiting, maybe tomorrow, maybe today, maybe not?

I'm getting more light hearted about it and I don't give a rats arse but the waiting is annoying and I also reckon it's going to be a fine or worse. Their website has a nice general purpose for-pissing-us-off fine of $2000 below the list of more serious offences.

So, I'm getting a plan B together. Via a friend of a friend I have been approached to tell my story to the Dominion and Radio NZ. I'm sure I can organise somethign better that would pay my fine, bu tfor now, I want to hear what Doc have to say. I don't want to poke them in the eye if they're going to let me off with a stern warning from a man with a large beard.

I also have a job interview tomorrow morning so really don't want anything coming back and biting me on the arse there.

-S

From Trading in endangered animals to drug running.  This week has covered so much.

I hit customs in Wellington.  I've never had the "come this way sir, it's search your bags time you shady looking git".  Yesterday I finally did. 

I was having a fun time, yarnign with the curious old lady who was searching my bag.  Making a hundred and one bad jokes about the stuff I had with me.  The search finished, nothing found, no surpise there.  I've seen enough episodes of airport doco\reality shows to know the insanity of even contemplating carrying drugs through an airport.  Coupled with that is that in my advancing years I cannae be fuct with anything more than the occasional smoke or herbal pill from the dairy. 

So bag search cleared, I'm picking up and heading off when they call me back and ask for my phone.  I'm somewhat "eh?" but hand it on over, what are they gonna do, bust me for a bad spice girls ring tune..

Out come the swabs, all over the phone and into the wee analyser they have.  This is new, I haven't seen this on border patrol I'm thinking.  My curiosity kicks in at weird times, so I'm quizzing them about  it and having a great time.  Until it goes off like a fire alarm.  Customs guys pop out of the woodwork from all around converging on me and the machien like I just kneed the pope in th  nuts. 

The analyser detects trace particals of drugs from the swabs and rates the strength of the traces from 1 to 10.  Simpel enough, fine and dandy, no dramas here I had been thinking.  WOrst they may see is a faint trace of weed from Dilmah's pack I was borrowing.  NOPE.    Amphetamine 6/10  MDMA 8/10  Heroin 10/10 is onscreen...  WTF???????????????????????

I'm laughing hysterically, I can't help it, but it soon sets in that it's brown trouser time...

"It'll be ok mate, just tell us what you've got and where it is"...  "So what drugs have you been doing".. etc etc even followed by the utterly surreal straight-from-tv  checklist of cheesy drug names "so you;ve been using coke?, charlie?.. etc etc ".    An unreal mix of absurd desire to laugh and fear.  After a good half hour of me telling them their machine is fuct it's strip search time...

Right then and there I was set to bolt, fuck being innocent, no rubber gloved customs dude is coming near me without dinner and drinks first.  THANKFULLY the words non-invasive search were uttered putting all my fears of adventure tourism going to another level, far behind.  I tell you though, striking a pose in front of two blokey strangers is nto on my list of hobbies for good reason.

No drugs found, no 8 pounds of heroin strapped to my nads, four customs officers looking very surprised and yet still very very stern...

"You can go now sir...."

Ah WTF????  You tell me I'm packing heroin and that my phone is covered in more party drugs than you can shake a stick at and now I'm suddenly free to go?  You've decided your machine is fucked?  No?  So what then?

Sodd the questions. I'm gone..  But now I'm expecting search warrant #2 on my house any minute.  Would I be overly paranoid to think that my phone is probably tapped? 

I dread to think what "unofficial" notes are on my police record now.  My job involves a fair bit of overseas travel.  Do I now just expect to be stopped every time?  Do I leave my phone behind when I do back to Indonesia?  Do I take a jar of Vaseline?

Obviously I must smuggle kiwi's out of the country to be exchanged for pounds of Heroin at the first sketchy nation I visit...  No longer suspicious Kiwi smuggler, I've moved up.

-S

I did this the other week. When I figure out how to post date it I shall.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I work fairly frantically sometimes, in my job I'm a perfectionist I spose. Outside of work i'm laid back and lazy as shiite. Anyway, when too stressed I do stupid shit for fun.

That day I decided to auction a Kiwi on Tradme. Part of testing my theory on turning creativity into cash. This was the ad:

--------------------------------------------------------------

My house and surrounding shrubbery are infested with a particularly large and scary type of spider. I have a paranoid fear of spiders.

Also surrounding my house live a selection of native NZ skinks and geckos and a small kiwi named Jasper. I had heard Jasper at night and hoped he and the gecko's would delivery a timely death to the hoard of arachnids about the property.

(Here's the pic of Jasper I nicked off google and threw in the auction. I like the hands in the shot, it gives it that nice believable touch)
http://www.southernencounter.co.nz/images/Conservation-kiwi-shot.jpg

This has not occurred so drastic steps are needed. I need to purchase a very very large quantity of bug bombs. These aren't cheap and I'm broke.

Therefore I have captured Jasper and am offering him for sale. Reserve starts at $30 (3 bug bombs) and the final purchaser can also have a few gecko's thrown in. Purchase will have to be by pickup as I'm not too sure NZ Couriers deal in small flightless birds.

For those of you interested in Jaspers welfare, no I am not going to eat him (as damn good as roast as he looks like he'd make) and he is currently roaming free in the land around my property. He is easy to catch.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Now, this cracked me right up. But little was I prepared for the several thousand people who looked at the auction within the 4 hours it was up (Trademe took it down later that day). Also I wasn't prepared for the host of psycho's emailing me to buy wee Jasper (over 200 emails, some of which were from taxidermists and the editor of NZ Bird and Finch magazine). In the end some crazy woman from Auckland clicked the buy-now price of $200 and contacted me to say she'd drive down to Wellington the following day.

Due to the rampant gullibility and insanity of these people I altered the auction. I didn't want to sell a kiwi, merely the amusing idea, so needed a different approach. So I reposted the auction as not selling Jasper but selling "bags of kiwi feathers" harvested from Jasper, who would remain unharmed and happily living in my shrubbery, until I could come up with a better idea.

ANYWAY, all my fun and games had finished for the day and I thought nothing more of it and I have been in Fiji for the last two weeks for work.

Last Friday  I got a call from Dilmah my flatmate at 7am saying a private investigator and a Department of Conservaton offical, both in suits had arrived with a search warrant and were proceeding to search, my flat, the lawn and surrounding shrubbery for Jasper.  After I stoped crying from laughing so hard I called the investigator.  He said that Doc would likely stop me at customs in Auckland for an interview.

So instead I arrived at the Wellington airport yesterday and no Doc official there etc as they still thought I was coming via Auckland.  I'm expecting their call tomorrow sometime......  I've looked over the fines and various jail terms they can hand out and expect a mere warning.  But wtf, it was worth it....

Doc are quick to act, just really really dumb.

-S

I love excel spreadheets and the choice things they can do when you fill them with figures. Better yet I love the net as a place to obtain figures from utterly unrelated sources. From a nice selection today I have calculated, through glorious use of an excel spreadsheet, that I have a 0.06% chance of dying from some pretty fuct endings.

Starting with their individual categories and lifetime probablility stats we have:

Vehicular Death
-------------------------
While in a 3 wheeled vehicle - .0002%
Riding an animal or animal drawn vehicle - .003%
Air or Space travel - .024%

Now the huge difference between these three brings all kind of speculation. Is the saftey of the 3 wheeled vehicle down to it's rarity, predictability or inability to get up pace? Am I really that likely to die in space? I mean 0.24% kinda likely?

Death via the animal kingdom
-------------------------
Dog fodder - .0007%
Other Mammals - .0019%
Bitten or crushed by reptile - .0012%

Go the reptiles. I can't even think of a likely scenario where I could end up beign crushed to death by a reptile. Here's a tip, stay out of fkin Sumatra or bomb the shit outta the Komodo's and there goes that stat. It'd be like beating death. I'd also like these "other mammals" described, possibly with prrof via crappy home video clips.

Acts of Buddha
-------------------------
Lightning strike - .0119%
Cave in - .01132%

Dull, dull dull.

Acts of Man
-------------------------
Drowning - .011183%
Death by Fireworks - .000162%
Foreign body entering through natural orifice - .00089%

Hahahahhaha. All the yarns you hear about people in A&E with bits stuck up themselves usually involve them surviving. Behold the untold story..

Death from above
-------------------------
Accidental hanging - .00755%
Accidental suffocation or strangulation in bed - .0123%

Just how ripped off would you feel with your Michael Hutchence-like antics in the local paper and you cut down in your prime from accidental hanging. And I'm just stunned at the likelihood of death in bed.

If you tally them all up, there's a good .06% chance you'll suffer one of these. No offense but that'd be fkin tops.

-=S=-

As Popbitch has already pointed out, how fkin sketchy is the list of Celebs being called as character witnesses for Michael Jackson:

Stevie Wonder - what's he going to say - "I didn't see anything?"
Kobe Bryant - accused of rape
Nick Carter - suspected of beating up his ex, Paris Hilton after filming "One night in Paris"

Yeh, that'll convince a jury.

-S

I'm currently suffering from Insomnia. It hits me every few years for I know not what reason. Starting out as very restless sleep then quickly moving on to 5 day periods with no sleep. I'm now past that joyous part and now on to it's final stage of 3 hours sleep a night, which is suprisingly enough to keep you alive and chirpy.

I'd have slept more last night but I'm in the Cicada Ghetto. At 5 am every morning this week they;ve decided that while it's not really light yet, fuckit, it's enough for them and time to rock. Around 50 Cicada's in the foliage around my lawn, plus the sneaky one that hid in my room, kick start a Shostakovich piano concerto in shitty cicada clickin B minor.. I can sleep on the bus but I can't sleep through that.

This of course calls for retaliation, I'm never one to let something get the better of me. I have spent this morning researching the Cicada and it's life cycle. But more importantly, It's natural predators. Fortunately for my backyard adversaries the two NZ predators of Cicada's are unable to come to the party so to speak as they are currently busy becoming endangered. Tip for the Department of Conmservation here, The Brown Kiwi and Northern Gecko would probably do a lot better in the species growth stakes if they lived in the shrubbery about my lawn.

So short of importing the North American Brown Hornet I'm out of natural eradication methods.

Also amongst my mornings research was the was the variation of lifecycles amongst Cicada breeds. The NZ Cicada species are all of the Genus "Maoricicada" (I shit you not) which after skipping on into Australasia and NZ around 24 million years ago upped its energy levels to have a 2-4 life cycle. Not overly gripping indeed, but this is greatly different from the North American Cicada, Genus Magicicada (no i'm still not taking the piss). It has a 17 year life cycle. It only emerges from beneath the earth for it's final year of life. Apart from the odd confused Cicada, americans go 17 years without hearing Cicada's.... I love the sound usually,. only hearing it every 17 years would make it pretty damn special.

-S

I really like the new Interpol album. I can't help it. It's taken a long long time to get over the fact that the lead singer sounds like Don McGlashan. Don McGlashan in the Blam Blam Blam era even.... But it can and did happen.

On the topic of kiwi rock crimes the Wellington City Council is again bringing out the big guns. Whenever they want to help our fair city celebrate they immediately turn to either "The Beat Girls" or cock rock dinosaurs of yesteryear. This Saturday heralds the grand return of "The Rock Barge". Jordan Lucks latest musical vehicle ("Luck".. how droll) and local pain causing covers band "Uncle Monkey" are to be moored off Oriental Bay playing shitty tunes all avo. That'll lock in the Riviera feel....

If this isn't a call for the return of Alain Mafart I don't know what is. I have the scuba gear, I'm just short of French Army issue explosives.

I feel highly motivated today, I have organised the employment of a new minion for myself and the repair of my stairs at home. Currently we have the first and the last step and a great leap of faith inbetween. There are specialist stair builder\installers. Did you know that? I didn't, I almost thought they were taking the piss. It makes sense though.

-S

Highlight of the week: My flatmate is GONE !

He was a spineless yet happy wee flatmate who's only vices were smoking too much and being forever at the beck and call of his ex girlfriends.

I'll miss him a bit but the longing to live alone again is winning by a mile.

With tremendous luck, now that I have my house to myself again I'm now stuck in Palmy all week for work. The hotel snob has come out in me again though as I am in the Palmy Ghetto Royale until Thursday.

The minibar is well stocked with Lion Rouge and Marque Vue. I do realise I am being a prat by mocking it but I laughed myself nearly to tears when I opened the fridge door. I celebrated by having a rouge and wearing a singlet and boxers round the room.

The best part of it all though is that there is no air conditioning. Yes, it's summer, it's a 6 story building, it's a heat wave. Terrific. I've spent quality time in my rental car listening to cd's with the AC on full.

My fault though, I picked it. Of the two "Hotels" in Palmy this was the cheaper, and in a rare moment of frugality toward company money I decided to rough it. And like the true urban office warrior I am roughing it means 4 stars.
It however also usually means fkin air con ya inbred wanks.

Weekend was sporadically filled with migraines, swimming and an indecisive new GF. She's torn between letting me have my space, wanting to spend lots of time with me and also how to trust my shady self. I'm remarkably uninterested. Oh well, the water was cold and my migraines are gone.

I missed the One Love concert and even my drunken bowls tournament. It was too hot to drink and the One Love concert whilst sounding cool, was far too much like a fashion day out in Hataitai....

-A

18 Earthquakes in two weeks.  It's time to make peace with the world.  I'm certain now as I have independent clued up advice.  I work with science types, Geologists included.    All three are working from home until further notice.  Tremendous......   

After this discovery I approached the engineer who designed our building as to it's ability to hold up under buckwild seismic activity.  He claims that technically it can withstand any quake up to around 9 on the richter scale.  Having half a clue I know that this man obviusly has a vested interest in saying that.  Luckily I drink with a lot of structural engineers.  They are free and easy with opinions that I usually discount unless they hit a consensus.  Todays consensus is that anything over 6 will require the use of a spade to make it home that day.

Hence peace with the world time....

My broad reasonsfor repentence seem to be:

- Cruel manipulation of people for my own entertainment
- A willful disregard for the environment
- Avoidance of conflict due to reasons of laziness
- A general fuckwit attitude to girlfriends

I doubt I can silence the movement of tectonic plates with this but will see what I can do. 

Perhaps instead I can shift city?

-A

Ok well I've just decided what one can do with a 13th floor window and time to kill. No I am not jumping.

Experiment 1

http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/planecut.html

Ease of construction - surprisingly confusing
Aesthetics - Gay
Flight ability - Hard to tell as howling Wellington wind hurled it south into a gutter at the Dept of Corrections within three seconds

Experiment 2

http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/nickplan.html

Ease of construction - Monkey level
Aesthetics - Well it is a paper dart.
Flight ability - I got the church, kickass. Estimated two hundred meters distance at a descent of 70 odd meters.

Experiment 3

http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/peteplan.html

Ease of construction - Old skool, easy as.
Aesthetics - As graceful as paper can get.
Flight ability - Somewhat reminiscent of 9/11. Went fine until it hit the old Foreign Affairs building next door then plummeted straight down.

Yeh stuff you were dying to know about I know. Origami is next unless I get a better idea.

-S

I usually steer well clear of any song that involves the use of lyrics such as "sha-la-la" but Jersey Girl by Tom Waits is wonderful.  Like the worlds most beautiful love song sung by a chain smoking bum lying in an alley covered in vomit.  You should buy it, download it, whatever, it's great  (On the "Heart and Vine" album).

But that's not my yarn today.  My yarn is about a girl.  Hell most of them are really, I seem to be a tragically focused man.    I have yet another new GF and have had for about three weeks now, which is usually the time I get bored and cut and run (only one exception previously this year).  So far though I'm still interested and all has been going fairly swimmingly.  Instead of my usual outgoing, stylish, sucessful, smart, outdoorsy type that sees things in me that really aren't there, I have one that is actually very like myself.  Well like me except better and female.  I have come to grips with my two prime requisites in prospective girlfriends, high intelligence and shallow good looks.  These are both met so so far it's a relaxed deal, and cruising along nicely.

Until last night when she started dropping hints about her deep interest in the world of Wicca.....  Yes I had noticed her large stash of Fantasy novels and abundance of aromatherapy oils and burning kit, but .. Wicca?   Goddammit!!!!!!  I thought her great taste in music and clothes would have balanced it all out.

I am fairly open minded but coupled with this is a huuuuuge dose of skepticism about anything and everything not able to be proven outside a zoo or lab environment.  It gets me through life quite fine and dandy.  I don't have anything against religion at all, I think most are brill, they do tremendous things in the community (Kiddy fiddling and Destiny aside).  But if you are going to choose a religion why, why, why Wicca goddammit???   What angst ridden prancing in the forest ritualistic new age bollocks.  I may now sound like my dad but I truly doubt the sanity of any girl with a science degree that then chooses to devote her intellectual and spiritual time to Wicca. 

Is this the end of it?  Well yes probably.  I give it the weekend before she goes off the deep end and I'm forced to perform an exorcism.  Hahahah goddammit, I should have guessed, too many celtic style tattoos and an accurate knowledge of constellations and full moon cycles.  Sometimes I'm utterly utterly blind.

I can't decide what to do so I shall let the wonderful world of drink solve it on Saturday night after another day of diving.

-S

It's not often in ones life that you encounter someone you really hate, someone so selfish and corrupt that it's the driving aim of their day.  Thats Alison Annan.

I don't care what the brainwashed numpties at Cambridge High say, Alison Annan is an evil cow.  There's not a single person I know that went through that school or had any association with Annan that didn't end up thinking this.  She's used Cambridge High as her own money machine, she ruined the education of a large number of students and also made the working conditions of the teachers a living hell.

Now I say all this as impartially as I can.  Unlike most people who come into contact with her she didn't actually screw me over directly.  Apart from being on permanent daily report my entire seventh form year I was fairly lucky.  I was in Annans target group she was there to "help achieve".  Smart, middle class, will generally behave and pass my exams.

Not so lucky are the dozens of people at the school that were expelled or better yet "excluded" from school.  Exclusions don't show up in the Ministry or Education expulsion\suspension stats so are a much nicer way of doing it yet looking like a high quality school.  But unlike any normal school, these punishments weren't used as last resorts, more as tools to weed out the troublemakers and poor achievers.  The stereotypical muntah that played up in class, got into fights, yet was basically an ok kid would in a normal school be on detention pretty regularly.  At CH they'd be expelled. 

Usually they would be 5th or 6th form so once expelled they'd not sign up to another school and would go on the dole.  If by some chance they did want to enroll elsewhere, no Hamilton school would take them, they're out of the zone, they don't have to.  I was friends with plenty of these types who were on the whole a lot smarter than they made out yet were denied a proper education and chance at a tertiary one.  There was no program to seperate these kids into high maintenance classes or anything at all.  Sure thats the fault of the system you can say but it's also such a big problem at CH because Annan actively promoted this in her bid for CH to become a high academic achiever.

(Cambridge High has consistently been in the top 5 schools with highest number of suspensions and expulsions let alone "exclusions", for over a decade now.)

To help her achieve this also came the huge increase in students studying "NZ English", "Waikato Maths" and dozens of other B-Grade certificates that you passed by virtually just turning up to class.   This wasn't some spontaneous trend, it started when she became principle.  Many of these students wanted to sit School C or 6th form cert but were strongly advised by Annan not to.  Students that insisted on trying were often just plain denied enrollment to anything except "NZ English".  One guy in particular had his parents brought in for a meeting where Annan and the guidance counsellor at the time sat them down and spent a half hour telling them why their child was actually just too dumb to pass school C and shouldn't try.   Crap, he's no brain surgeon but he's averagely intelligent and passed a 3 year horticultiure diploma course at Tech and became head of a city council Arborculture unit.   This all equals a much higher pass rate at exam time because half of the underachievers are no longer at school and the other half aren't sitting anything of actual worth.

Then there's of course the "International Students" and Annan's shady financial dealings.  Back when Annan started, enrolling high fee paying Asian students was a new innovation in NZ and it was a great idea.  It gave all of us small town students a bit of horizon broadening and probably paid for a few new books in the library.  But shortly after the program being set up, Annans husband was hired as "International students liason" getting paid an assload of cash.  Good work for a half assed unemployed plumber...   Later on the Annans start the "Cambridge College" in Hamilton (they claim not to be it's owners, yet have a controlling stake etc).  It's a school for foreign students at 7th form level.  here they complete a few basic english language courses and complete a curriculum tailored to get them Waikato University entrance.   Dubious enough for starters.  But, as Alison Annan and CH's "International students liason officer" travel around asia,  paid for by Cambridge High, drumming up business they also spend over half their time using it to promotoe their own "Cambridge College".  Many people close to both even speculate ALL their time overseas was devoted to it.. 

Also in the bizarre stakes, Cambridge High now has no library.  It has an internet Cafe that isn't yet connected properly.  Yes, NO library.  I'm in IT, internet access at school is an important learning tool, but WTF???  no library?  The average school age kid generally doesn't like to read, the school library is a good way to force them. It also creates an additional source of reading material for kids from low income families.  I won't even go into the problems the kids will have when they hit Uni and they're not allowed to use the net as a research source..  This just blows my mind.  Another money saver Annan plan.  I've got dozens of mental anecdotes of the Annan and her shady activities and so does anyone else from Cambridge but it'd go for pages, Annans $10k yearly clothing allowance etc etc...

CH has one of the least truancy, drug, exam failure stats in the country.  It's pretty obvious why.  Yet Annan has long been credited for "turning a problem school around".   Excluding and ruining the education of half the local community in favour of the middle class intelligent students is hardly an achievement anyone should be happy about.  In person Alison Annan is a charming self assured individual, that comes across on TV and is why many people out there will see her as a scapegoat and undeservedly persecuted.  But she disregards all opinions except her own and will fuck over anyone to get there.  She always manages to come up smelling of roses but this time I hope she gets what she deserves.

-S